Item7578: Use of uninitialized value $_[0] in Configure::UI line 138

When setting a password for the first time, he got a Perl error identical to this one: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Support/SID-01978:

Use of uninitialized value $_[0] in join or string at /var/www/twiki/lib/TWiki/Configure/UI.pm line 138. 

I noticed that he used Perl 5.20, the same as the guy in the support ticket.

To resolve the issue, I applied a quickfix in his code, only joining those elements in @_ that are defined:

- CGI::td({class=>'secondCol'}, join(' ', @_)))."\n";
+ CGI::td({class=>'secondCol'}, join(' ', grep{defined;} @_)))."\n";

My guess is that Perl 5.20 has implemented some security constraints that breaks compability.

Does anyone see any problem with implementing this in TWiki?

-- TWiki:Main/TerjeAndersen - 2014-10-14

Thank you Terje! See more debug info at TWiki:Support.SID-01981 - it's the TMPDIR that is undefined. So that issue needs to be addressed as well.

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 2014-10-14

I recommend to add this (untested) fix:

--- TWiki/Configure/Checkers/Environment.pm   (revision 28198)
+++ TWiki/Configure/Checkers/Environment.pm   (working copy)
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
     my $this = shift;
     my $block = '';
     for my $key ( sort keys %ENV ) {
-        $block .= $this->setting($key, $ENV{$key});
+        $block .= $this->setting( $key, defined $ENV{$key} ? $ENV{$key} : '(undefined)' );
     }
     $block = $this->foldableBlock(CGI::em( 'Environment variables' ),
         '(read only) ', $block);

Could anyone verify if this fixes the issue on Perl 5.20? You should get (undefined) for undefined environment variables listed in the "Environment Variable" section of configure.

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 2014-10-14

In addition, apply Terje's fix too, but possibly return a more verbose message:

CGI::td({class=>'secondCol'}, join(' ', map{ defined $_ ? $_ : '(undefined)'; } @_)))."\n";

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 2014-10-14

It worked in my 5.12.2 perl with CGI module downgraded to 4.04.

-- TWiki:Main.DaniMolina - 2014-10-27

This is now fixed with new pre-installed CgiContrib, tracked in Item7620: Add CGI to TWiki core distribution

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 2015-11-29